


Settles in as the Gentle Present

by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee



Series: A Universe in the Corner of Your Eye [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Existential Angst, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, Keith Grows Up in Night Vale, M/M, Time Shenanigans, but in a cute way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-20 23:48:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16565471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee/pseuds/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: “How are you?” Carlos asks.“Scientific or personal inquiry?” Keith asks.“Personal,” Carlos holds a standard ‘Personal Inquiry’ form, partially filled out in yellow highlighter and ultraviolet crayon, with ‘ARE YOU OK?’ in block letters across the ‘additional comments, chants and/or challenges’ section.





	Settles in as the Gentle Present

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU MY DEARS FOR ALL YOUR LOVELY COMMENTS!
> 
> This is set directly after the first fic in this series. I considered not giving Keith the ability to turn purple but I was reading over my original tumblr post and the phrase "My beloved nephew Keith who is sometimes purple" was too delightful to resist.
> 
> Enjoy! Please comment with your thoughts, feelings, and opinions regarding the existence of mountains and angels.

_“The past is gone, and cannot harm you anymore. And while the future is coming for you, it always flinches first and settles in as the gentle present.”_

  * _Welcome to Night Vale_



            Keith’s tired. Keith feels like he’s been tired his whole life. His _bones_ are weary. He didn’t realize he could feel like this – like his marrow had turned to lead, his blood to clay. His head feels like it’s full of angry hornets and his body feels like its trying to sink into the earth and become one with its molten core.

            So really, business as usual these days.

            Iverson’s still trying to holler his way through a meeting with Team Voltron, the apparently-less-dead-than-previously-assumed Garrison pilots, Shiro, the army of clipboard-weilding Garrison flunkies who keep following Shiro around, and Cecil. Iverson is not having much success. For one thing, it’s already difficult to shout over that many people, and for another, Cecil is not the type to be intimidated, swayed, or even mildly impressed by shouting.

            Keith slipped out around the third time Iverson had bellowed a question, only to be completely derailed by Cecil’s tendency to answer questions via existential soliloquy instead of ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Pidge, Allura, and Coran jumping on every other utterance with observations, exclamations, or, Coran’s case, his own meditations on the frailty of life and the vagaries of finger-counting and other art forms did not help matters at all, of course.

            Keith tucks himself into an unobtrusive corner of the hallway, behind a potted plant, tucking his knees up under his chin and resting his head on the wall behind him. He closes his eyes and sighs. Really sighs. Sighs so long and hard he can feel the tips of his fingers and nose turn faintly purple with the violence of the air leaving his lungs.

            Huh. He hasn’t let himself relax enough for the purple to fade in…well…not since he first joined the Garrison and started living outside of Night Vale for the first time.  He watches the color trace patterns across his skin like strange, mobile birthmarks, before fading away again, leaving ordinary human color behind.

            Maybe it’s having Uncle Cecil around, he ponders. Cecil tends to bring out the unusual in people.

            Something taps his foot and he looks up into his other uncle’s eyes. Tío Carlos is giving him one of his inscrutable looks, like Keith’s a complicated calculus problem everyone else is struggling with, but Carlos can decipher in a glance.

            “ _Hola,_ ” Keith gives his uncle a weak wave, “Do they need me in there?”

            Carlos shrugs, “Honestly, I have no idea. I stopped listening every time anyone with a uniform started shouting.”

            “Probably a good plan with this group,” Keith acknowledges, before paling, lavender tingeing his cheeks, “But maybe don’t apply that logic to the Sheriff’s Secret Police.”

            Carlos chuckles, easing himself down so he sits cross-legged in front of Keith’s corner. From most angles it probably looks like the man in the paisley lab coat with the really exceptional hair is casually chatting with a potted plant. Not even a living plant, which might chat back if it’s feeling particularly lively, but a fake one, which everyone knows will only howl incomprehensibly if pushed.

            “How are you?” Carlos asks, still holding Keith in his gaze, even if Keith won’t meet his eyes, apparently comfortable just letting Keith exist in his field of vision for a time.

            “Scientific or personal inquiry?” Keith asks.

            “Personal,” Carlos holds a standard ‘Personal Inquiry’ form, partially filled out in yellow highlighter and ultraviolet crayon, with ‘ARE YOU OK?’ in block letters across the ‘additional comments, chants and/or challenges’ section.

            Keith takes it with a grimace.  Now he has to tell the truth.

            “I’m…” ‘fine’ sticks in his mouth like chewing gum on a shoe. He hangs his head. “I’m…” What is he, anyway? He doesn’t know. Exhausted, yes. Stressed? He’s not sure, he may have blown past that state of being and straight into some nether-world beyond simple stress but somewhere other than a complete mental and physical breakdown.

            “It’s hard to come back, isn’t it?”

            Keith is a little offended, to be honest. His Tío Carlos isn’t supposed to be this perceptive, dammit. It’s bad enough dealing with Cecil’s uncanny insights no matter where he goes in the galaxy, but at least he could always count on Carlos to be literal and systematic to a fault 87% of the time.

            “Where do you get off reading me?” he blurts out, then flushes a dark indigo when he realizes skin-to-inquiry-paperwork contact has forcibly removed his brain-to-mouth filter and released bits of his internal monologue into the wild.

            Carlos just shakes his head, however. “Don’t worry, I promise this won’t be a regular occurrence.”

            “Good,” Keith mumbles rebelliously, like the teenager he isn’t anymore, because SOME SPACE WHALE had to go and STEAL YEARS OF HIS LIFE. Space whales. Rude, the lot of them.

            “You were on that whale a long time,” Carlos says blandly, like he’s making one of his many observations about the world around them.

            “Yeah,” Keith picks at the hem of the uniform pants the Garrison gave them. Keith hates these pants. He hates the Garrison uniforms. Always has. They remind him of that time Strex Corp took over Night Vale and tried to turn them all into mindless corporate drones in service to powers unknown and unseen. Keith can handle forces beyond his control attempting to force subservience on him and his hometown in the name of unknown hostile entities, so long as he can punch those forces in their smug faces. But was the town-wide dress code necessary? No. No, it wasn’t.

            “You know what the worst part about being in the desert otherworld was?” Carlos says into the silence as Keith broods at his pant legs.

            “What?”

            “The way time felt. How every minute pushed me further and further away from everything and everyone I loved.”

            “What do you mean? You were only gone a year.”

            “In Night Vale a year passed, yes,” Carlos agrees.

            Keith doesn’t get it and then, all at once, he does. “You…how long were you stranded there?”

            Carlos gives him a sad smile. “You don’t want to know.”

            “Did you ever tell - ?”

            Carlos shakes his head, “No.”

            “Why?”

            “What good would it do?”

            “I don’t know,” Keith huffs, “Maybe improve your mental health or some shit?”   
            Carlos shakes his head, “It was over and done with.  I was stranded and then I wasn’t.  How could it help any of us feel any better to know that things were even worse than everyone else expected?”

            “So you’re saying…what, I should just bury everything and move forward? Because that hasn’t been working for me lately.”

            Carlos shakes his head, “I don’t know what I’m trying to say to you. I’m just…I want you to know it’s okay to…not be fine yet.”

            “A Scientist is Always Fine,” Keith quotes.

            “Eventually, maybe,” Carlos acknowledges, “But it doesn’t have to happen immediately.”

            Keith stares at him and sees a strange mirror image of himself. He’s always felt a connection to his Tío Carlos. They’ve always been the quiet, awkward halves to Cecil’s exuberant, occasionally explosive whole. And now…here’s someone who understands how it felt to be so, so heartbreakingly _relieved_ to come home, only to find the years he lived somewhere else, years lived outside of everyone else’s timeline, has forced a crack open between him and the rest of the world he doesn’t know how to bridge or repair.

            All at once his eyes fill with tears and his whole body shakes and oh god, this has been a long time coming and a complete surprise all at once. He tips forward, crashing into his uncle’s shoulder and sob-screaming like a child whose just seen his first Infinite and Potentially Meaningless Void. His hands spasm at the lapels of Carlos’ lab coat and the scientist’s arms come up to gently hold Keith’s shuddering shoulders.

            “I’m not fine. I’m not fine. I’M NOT FINE,” Keith finds himself chanting (but not Chanting, understand) into the soft furry sweater Carlos is wearing under his lab coat.

            “I know, I know, I know, it’s okay,” Carlos says over and over, running a soothing hand over Keith’s shoulders.

            Keith’s sobs taper off into little hitching sniffles. His skin’s gone blotchy purple-pink with the force of his feelings, he’s sure, his pupils narrowing into slits like his mother’s.  Exhausted, he slumps in his corner and pulls away, scrubbing at his face with the crumpled remains of Carlos’ Personal Inquiry Form.

            “Feel better?” Carlos asks, voice gentle.

            Keith shakes his head, but he’s not sure if he’s agreeing or denying his uncle’s statement. “I don’t know,” he admits, “I will, though.”

            “Good,” Carlos says and Keith gives him a tentative smile. “Now, can I huddle with you in this inauspicious corner? All the orange and uniforms are giving me Strex flashbacks.”

            “Oh my god, me too,” Keith agrees with a heavy sigh, skin returning to its typical, more human shade.

            Carlos chuckles and they squeeze into the corner behind the fake plant. They both frown as the leaves rustle, and relax when the branches stop moving on their own and don’t offer up any false compliments or invite them to join them in the earth.

            “So how long do you think Uncle Cecil will keep Iverson bellowing?” Keith asks conversationally.

            “Who knows,” Carlos says, resigned, amused, and strangely proud of his husband all at once, “Time, after all, isn’t always real.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fic and series titles from Night Vale quotes :)


End file.
